


Baby It's Cold Outside

by Zillabird



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Christmas, Injury, M/M, Song: Baby It's Cold Outside, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28228437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zillabird/pseuds/Zillabird
Summary: A mouse and a wolf discuss the weather.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 104





	Baby It's Cold Outside

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning. I wrote this in an hour and didn't edit it. I love spinning cliches so maybe that makes this unique enough. Hope you enjoy.

The wooden floor had boot prints where the snow had melted. Mixed in with the red blood dripped in with the ice turned the puddles a watery pink. There was a bloody handprint on the doorknob and blood-soaked towels on the floor beside the couch Dick laid on.

Outside, the blizzard continued to roar. From time to time the windows would rattle, pelted with pellets of ice and snow that clung to the glass and froze a thick layer over the panes.

“You’re awake.”

Dick looked up at the archway between the living room and the kitchen. Slade stood there, wearing all the gear he’d been in when Dick had been awake last.

“Good,” Slade said. “I need to go.”

“There’s a blizzard outside,” Dick said. He curled his fingers into the back of the couch until the knuckles went white and his bicep strained and pulled himself up against the pain in his abdomen.

On cue, the wind picked up and rattled the windows once more. The door groaned, or maybe a nearby tree. It was hard to tell.

Slade snorted. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Dick’s arm spasmed from the effort of keeping himself up and Slade moved around the couch to crouch down by his side.

“Lay your fool ass back down before you pop some stitches,” Slade said.

Dick let Slade guide him back down against the couch. “Would think that wouldn’t be such a bad thing for Deathstroke the Terminator, vigilantes bleeding out seems like good business.”

“You dying on my couch isn’t my idea of a nice evening,” Slade muttered. His fingers slid up the top half of Dick’s uniform and prodded the tender flesh around the gash he’d apparently stitched up while Dick was unconscious.

Dick shivered. “How long was I out? Your hands are still ice cold.”

“Long enough,” Slade muttered. “I’m sure the rest of your clan are worried.”

“They trust me to take care of myself,” Dick countered. “You’re just in a hurry to take off and finish the job.”

Slade’s jaw clenched. “Batman seems like a pacer. I’m sure he’s wearing a hole in the Cave.”

“I don’t think that’s even possible,” Dick said. Slade lowered his uniform again and Dick glanced over at the fire where it looks like the outer layers Slade had been wearing to combat the cold had been shed to dry off. “You should at least let all that finish drying off by the fire.”

“You suddenly worried I’ll catch a cold?” Slade asked. “I haven’t had a cold since I was fourteen.”

“You run off too soon and I might bleed out on your ugly couch,” Dick countered.

Slade eyed the stitches and the blood already everywhere around them. He growled beneath his breath. “Until this shit dries. I’m getting a drink.”

“Turn on some music,” Dick called towards the kitchen once Slade had disappeared. “Drown out that storm.”

Slade shouldn’t have stopped to save him. It might cost him the job, if he didn’t get back out there soon enough to finish it. If word spread, he was rescuing vigilantes it wouldn’t do much for his reputation either.

The crackling, distorted noise of a vinyl preceded Slade’s return. Dick arched an eyebrow. “Records?”

“Did you expect me to use iTunes?” Slade asked, setting down two glasses of what Dick was pretty sure was brandy.

Dick picked up his drink but didn’t sip from it. “I suppose not.”

Slade didn’t sit down, instead going to the window. He drew back the curtain a few inches to look out into the snowfall. From Dick’s location, all he could make out was the darkness and the ice creeping across the windows. “What?”

“Checking to see about nosy neighbors,” Slade replied.

“There are neighbors out here?” Dick asked. “And furthermore, you think they’re going to spy on you during this snowstorm?”

“Never be too careful,” Slade said.

“You’re a paranoid old bastard,” Dick replied.

“That’s why I’ve got my drink all the way over here,” Slade confirmed.

“I’ve never needed to use a drug to get you into bed before,” Dick said. “You shouldn’t work after drinking. Not like Uber is going to come pick you up in this and take you to an assassination.”

“I like the implication that Uber would pick me up otherwise to take me to an assassination,” Slade mused. He swirled the liquor around the glass and then set it down, all the way over on the table across the room as if Dick really was in danger of drugging his drink. “This isn’t going to work.”

“What?” Dick asked.

“This thing you’re trying to do to keep me here,” Slade said. Then almost spat, in a humorous way, “This… spell.”

“I’m not magic, Slade,” Dick said. “I couldn’t make you stay any more than I could kill you right now. I can’t even stand.”

“You know what I mean,” Slade said.

“Take off the eyepatch,” Dick said, instead of addressing the insane statement about magic. “Come here. Dry off.”

Slade reached up and touched the eyepatch. He didn’t remove it though. He didn’t, often. Like it was intimate in a way that Dick had only earned enough to see when Slade was too broken to stop himself.

“I have a job,” Slade said. It didn’t necessarily sound like he was even speaking to Dick.

“Come here,” Dick repeated. Slade didn’t move. “You’re going to hurt my feelings you if you keep acting like I’m dying from the plague.”

“There’s a job to finish,” Slade said again. More forcefully, and no more aimed towards Dick than the first time.

Dick was quiet for a beat and the blizzard pelted the door and windows. “Slade, it’s a blizzard.”

“When did you get so pushy?” Slade asked.

“I like to think of it as opportunistic,” Dick said.

“I need to go,” Slade said, grabbing the coat from nearby the fire.

“Slade, stay,” Dick said.

“No,” Slade replied.

“Slade… _stay_ ,” Dick pushed.

The gun clicked as Slade checked the bullets and then holstered it. He pulled the coat on and then checked out the window once more.

“You see the storm out there?” Dick demanded. “You’re just as likely to freeze to death as you are to complete killing some mobster or hitman or drug runner out here.”

“You should contact your family after I leave,” Slade said. “They saw me take off with you.”

“Our relationship isn’t news to them,” Dick said.

“The little one looked murderous,” Slade said.

“Damian usually does,” Dick said. “We took him to the beach last year and he glowered beneath a palm tree for the whole week.”

“And that… uncle?” Slade demanded. “What does he think of you taking it up the ass from the enemy?”

“Who?” Dick asked, aghast at the direction of this conversation.

“The butler,” Slade said.

Dick rolled his eyes. “Don’t act stupid. You know who Alfred is. Now you’re just being obstinate and petty. Alfred knows I’m an adult who can choose my own sexual partners.”

Slade let the curtain drop again. “I’m going to get a cigar.”

“Since when do you smoke?” Dick asked.

“Since I met you,” Slade shot back.

Dick glowered at the back of his head. “You can be pissy about the job all you want but you can’t blame me for the weather.”

Slade stopped and faced him again. “I’m here because I dragged you back here to save your ass rather than let you bleed out with no supplies in this hell of a blizzard with your family helpless around you. I’m here instead of doing my damn job. Whose fault is that?”

Dick fell silent briefly. “You chose that, Slade. That’s part of falling in love with someone. You choose them over the rest of it. The answer isn’t to go prove that you can do both or that you don’t need me by chasing off into this and catching pneumonia or freezing to death out there. That’s just stupid, or selfish. I didn’t think you were either of those things.”

“Clearly you don’t know me that well,” Slade replied.

“Yeah, you are acting awfully stupid right now,” Dick said.

Slade narrowed his eye on him.

Dick laid his head back against the arm, letting Slade fall out of view. “It’s cold out, Slade. Stay with me tonight.”

The blizzard howled. The fire crackled. The silence in the room grew and grew.

“I’m getting another drink,” Slade muttered beneath his breath.

As if the first one wasn’t still dripping condensation down the sides.


End file.
